Persons whose vocation involves more than casual poking around in the earth have special-purpose tools that they take to sites of interest in such roles as agriculturist, anthropologist, builder, digger, geologist, prospector, rescue worker, soldier, or surveyor. Persons who pursue similar activities casually by way of avocation, whether as a camper, backyard gardener, beachcomber, handyman, or the like, may lack such a well defined need or otherwise be unable to justify acquiring or carrying such specialized tools. However, both amateurs and professionals are well served on occasion by compact versatile tools, in place of a group of individual specialized ones, as is confirmed by the almost legendary Swiss army knife.
Waara in U.S. Pat. No. 2,884,278 discloses a Garden and Lawn Tool convertible between a hoe-rake and a shovel or trowel. Perez in U.S. Pat. No. 3,592,272 discloses a Multipurpose Garden Tool with its sides variously useful as a spade, axe or knife, draw-rake, trimmer, etc. Mills in U.S. Pat. No. 4,549,611 discloses a Multi-Purpose Hand Tool including a hoelike gutter-cleaning end on a handle usable as a depth probe and suggests other uses for it, as well as summarizing ten prior patents. Although those inventions were meritorious, they do not begin to approach the compactness and versatility of mine.